The financial services industry is facing what’s been called a “decade of disruption”. Firms have to adapt to new technology and the changes in regulatory rules. Plus, they have to make a big shift in their customers’ expectations. One of the key challenges that companies need to focus on is their customers’ user experience. With the arrival of big data analysis, it’s vital that financial brands bring in new levels of personalised client experience. The time for personalisation is here!

Relevant Content

Professional investors want current, useful, personal and engaging content. Email marketers need to bring greater value to their recipients. It’s no longer just about influencing investors’ financial decisions, but also about offering expertise and educating them.

The most recent data from StoneShot’s Digital Marketing Survey (DMS) reveals that 59% of the UK and 45% of the US respondents read emails on the preferred topics, regardless the provider. This is a strong indicator that financial brands can bring in new prospects or even customers by offering marketing emails with relevant, valuable, and informative content.

For example, fund documents could be one of the types of email communication that investment professionals find useful. However, many asset managers still mass send all fund documents in one email. Bypassing clients’ interests, even for fact sheet distribution emails, will quite frequently result in a number of unsubscribed recipients with every deployment. Read more on streamlining fund document distribution.

Personalisation is not simply the use of dynamic salutation. This concept denotes the shift away from mass-marketing. In turn, it should reflect in fewer unwelcomed emails that your clients get. For instance, re-sending the same email to a mailing list is something that asset managers do quite regularly. However, StoneShot’s DMS has revealed that 85% of the UK and 76% of the US respondents either disagree or strongly disagree with this practice. It’s a big number of professional investors telling you that they want more relevant communication.

Marketing campaigns should reflect the interests of each individual client – whether it’s the topic, the language or the type of communication. StoneShot can help you enhance your personalisation with an automated content hub, StoneShot DNA. This tool can dynamically pull information from your live content feed and create personalised emails based on your contact’s individual preferences. Personalised updates and newsletters have never been easier to assemble and distribute!

Shorter Emails

Financial marketers often use email as the sole platform to fit all marketing opportunities and load large volumes of information into single emails. Understandably, they just want to get their messages in front of clients as quickly as possible but research is showing that’s not a good practice. Instead, prioritising content in emails is critical – without it you are risking a potential drop in engagement as well as a possibility of being flagged as spam by various email providers. 89% of professional investors in the US, and 82% in the UK indicate that they want shorter content in the emails they get.

Marketers should focus on the content that’s above-the-fold. Your audience should instantly understand the primary message without having to read more than a several sentences. Almost unanimously, advisers have indicated that they want more scannable content – especially bullet point summaries at the top of the email. 98% of respondents in the US and 96% in the UK have told us that this would make emails more effective.

Mobile Responsive Communication

Personalised experience should also be reflected in how your marketing emails render across different devices. Asset managers need to invest more into enhancing their client experience on mobile. Despite the general assumption that financial services companies are targeting mainly desktop or laptop users, digital trends are showing that this industry too is facing a shift in technology. According to our research, 91% of the UK and 88% of the US advisers want emails to be more mobile friendly.

Bottom line, your clients and prospects want a seamless flow of information – whether they access it on a mobile device or a desktop computer.